


Imagine living like a king someday

by DisasterSoundtrack



Category: Bandom, Pierce the Veil, Sleeping With Sirens
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, King for a Day (Music Video), M/M, kellic - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-17 18:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2319593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisasterSoundtrack/pseuds/DisasterSoundtrack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My name is Vic and I live a boring life, until I meet my partner in crime.<br/>(Capital Cash Bank/King For a Day AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imagine living like a king someday

_* A single night without a ghost in the walls_

My name is Vic and I live a boring life.  
  
It's not like I'm a boring guy, because I try not to be. But my childhood and youth was this awful, but colorful carousel, and then I suddenly got off the ride.  
  
I was born in a small town in Mexico, run by a drug cartel. I was twelve when I got stabbed in my abdomen while buying meth for my addicted father. After he died two years later, my mother took me and my brother, Mike, and crossed the American border. She found a job, made our stay legal, we went to schools and struggled with English.  
  
Luckily we were in San Diego, where there were plenty of immigrants, and our lives got easier from there. Smooth sailing.  
  
I graduated from high school and broke up with my third girlfriend. I went to community college for a three-year finance program and hooked up with my second boyfriend. Six months passed, he cheated on me, I lost interest in relationships.  
  
My brother plays drums in a band. I wear a suit to work every day. I love heavy music, I just have no talent for it. I grow my dark hair long, I wear a nose ring after hours. I write bad song lyrics at night.  
All of my dreams are in Spanish.  
  
I sit in front of my computer in a bank, looking at a clock slowly measuring a minute by boring minute of my insignificant existence. I look back on my life and wonder, _how did I end up here_?

It's almost two years since I've started at Capital Cash Bank, I'm 23 and it's summer, but in here it's always 20 degrees Celsius. It's the end of June and Kellin starts work at a desk next to mine. He's this disillusioned kid who went to a proper school only to find this shitty job to make ends meet. He's got a very improper haircut and a thousand kilowatt smile, despite everything. Later I find out his arms are covered in tattoos.  
  
On June 24th, I meet my partner in crime.

Kellin is so hardcore he eats salad for lunch everyday. He laughs, crushing cocktail tomatoes between his teeth, and tells me, "You really are something, Vic."  
  
"Yeah, an office rat drowning by numbers, with a side passion for music."  
  
"Well, I'm nothing else. Don't hate on yourself. Don't hate the player, hate the game."  
  
We become friends easily. We exchange numbers and text almost every evening, but we never meet outside from work.  
  
I get into my car, he goes the opposite direction. Says he lives 10 minutes away, on foot.  
  
We bond over hating our boss, branch manager Hubert Smalls. He's a disgusting, filthy sexist, who's stealing money from the clients and cutting our salaries. Everybody knows that, it's just that nobody caught him red – handed yet.  
  
Kellin is our office programming specialist. He says he will find dirt on Smalls one day and our lives will get better.  
  
We exchange long glances from time to time.  
  
I check him out more than I should.

 

_* This is a wasteland, my only retreat_

An afternoon with my brother and his band turns into a shouting competition. We drink tequila, which I hate, and Paul starts banging the table with Mike's drumsticks, deafening everybody. This is my cue. I don't even excuse myself, nobody would hear me anyway.  
  
I leave, a little dizzy from the tequila.  
  
My one – room apartment three blocks away is too small, too dark, too disappointing and a little messy.  
  
So is my life, I'd like to think, but that would be very pathetic.  
  
My father, Domenico Alberto Fuentes Di Maria, died at the ripe old age of 36. His funeral was the most beautiful ceremony I ever attended and all I could think about was how a man who turned our lives into hell with his addiction could possibly deserve all of this.  
  
Here I was, almost 10 years later, with a small lame car, hair falling on my face and a crush on my coworker.  
  
Dad would be so damn proud.  
  
I call Kellin, because it's still early and why the fuck not?  
  
"Hey, Vic, what's up?" I can see his bright smile, it's all over my head.  
  
"Hey, doin' anything? My evening just went askew."  
  
"Well, no, I was just hangin', you know. Wanna grab some beers together?"  
  
"I was gonna offer that."  
  
We meet in some rather chic place downtown. He's wearing a leather jacket over a black T – shirt, tight black jeans and motorcycle boots. Without the white smile plastered to his nice face, he looks sadder than ever. When he notices my run – down cardigan, a Ramones T – shirt and navy blue Converse, he lights up immediately and unnecessarily waves. Something in my stomach flutters.  
  
I smile involuntarily through most of the night, my face muscles hurt afterwards. Kellin makes me laugh. Somehow he even manages to make me laugh with a story of how he was clinically depressed at the age of 17.  
  
He stops smiling when I tell him about my dad and a knife wound.  
  
I say some bullshit in Spanish. It's a weak attempt in flirting. He blushes, messes up his hair and replies in a broken, but careful language.  
  
He walks me home. "I like walking. Clears my head." We hug goodbye, bumping each other's backs with open palms, and I see the shade of sadness in his eyes for the very first time. I watch him put on headphones, mess with his phone and walk away.  
  
I don't go to sleep for another hour, researching how fighting depression is a lifelong battle.

 

_* Maybe if we never wake up we can see the sky_

We have had way too much wine on a Wednesday evening, we are sitting in lounge chairs on Kellin's balcony, our tongues are too big in our mouths and our fingers entwine. It just happens. So we keep on holding hands, two young adults wishing they were kids, again or still, and we talk about music forever. I stroke his hand with my thumb and he grabs me even tighter, while something in his voice goes soft and sweet like honey.  
  
He walks me home at 1 AM and it takes almost an hour, but Kellin says that's okay.  
  
He has three rooms in his apartment. One of them is a soundproof kingdom of his various guitars. There's a wild beast in him, awake when he plays. My wrist hurts, because I try too hard when he lets me try.  
  
I really, really want to kiss him now.  
  
He laughs, finishing up a story about a failed trip to Jamaica with a girl he never even liked, we are by my building and there comes the goodbye hug again. This time Kellin's lips kiss my hair, somewhere above my ear.  
  
I whisper _buenas noches_ and he smiles like the devil, shoves his hands in his pockets and walks away, again.  
  


*

Coming to work every morning is not so terrible now, when I know I'll eat lunch with Kellin, watch him munch on green leaves and then glance at his determined face, while he's trying to find proof of our manager's iniquity.  
  
Anika leaves to deliver a baby. Everybody knows she won't be coming back.  
  
Smalls has a huge pizza delivered to his office.  
  
Something raw and twisted replaces the determination on Kellin's face. Green salad leaves disappear in his mouth at the speed of light while I eat my chicken barbecue sandwich.  
  
We take another "temporary" paycut the following week.

 

_* What's so good about picking up the pieces?_

I watch my brother's gig in some sticky bar, a secret party to celebrate a record deal they've signed. The band is better than ever and Mike looks so happy, so bright.  
  
His girlfriend, Alysha, is wearing a short blue dress to a post – hardcore concert. She's a law student, pretty like an angel with a nasty burn along her left palm, going up to her elbow.  
  
We all have our secrets.  
  
"I really hate this music!" she yells to me, laughing desperately, while we clap and cheer and Mike's band leaves the stage.  
  
He runs straight to her, gives her a warm hug and a kiss. Then Mike high – fives me.  
  
"Good job, bro. Congratulations, guys, you deserve this deal," I tell him, and I really mean it.  
  
We get some drinks later. Alysha is asleep with her blonde head in Mike's lap. He strokes her hair, looking at me. "What's with the mopey attitude lately, Vic?"  
  
I really have to leave this place.  
  
"I'm thinking about quitting my job."  
  
*

It's late and I feel like the living dead, watching grey clouds move along the sky lit up by city's glow.  
  
A doorbell. Must be Mike.  
  
It's not.  
  
Kellin is at my door, his hair a dramatic mess, a black-and-white plaid shirt buttoned unevenly, cheeks red, eyes full – on _insane.  
_  
"Vic, I know. We're gonna frame him."  
  
"What," I almost manage to ask before Kellin takes a step forward, puts both his hands on my arms and his mouth on mine.  
  
He's so excited he shivers while I just stand there, taking in his warmth. Kellin doesn't give up, he grabs me by the hair and pulls away just so I can see his face. No wide smile, only something quiet and intimate he wants to share with me. "Vic...?"  
  
Every alarm bell in my head rings loudly.  
  
I lock the door and push Kellin against it, pinning him with my body and seizing his mouth.  
  
We breathe like the end of the world is nearing.  
  
His sharp teeth catch on my lower lip while our tongues collide shamelessly.  
  
This is real. This is my life now, and it's real.  
  
Kellin blinds me with the smile again.  
  
"What... Why... No, how..." I try, but it doesn't work. Kellin lets himself into my living room/bedroom. Wind makes the curtains fly.  
  
"I still can't find anything on Smalls, and trust me, I look everyday. I know it's there, we all know it's there. So we're gonna frame him and then report it. To the IRS, the police, whoever."  
  
Everything is happening way too fast for me to follow.  
  
"Frame him?"  
  
"With my computer skills and your financial knowledge, we can do it in a way that it will never be traced back to us, and that will put Smalls behind bars for years."  
  
It's like Kellin took the boredom out of my life, lit a match and let it burn.  
  
I feel a rush of adrenaline I don't remember feeling in years.  
  
"Let's do it, then. I assume you have a plan?"  
  
He reveals the plan to me, bouncing like a hyperactive kid.  
  
"Is that why you kissed me? Because you were excited?"  
  
The question doesn't phase him even a little. "Yeah. I also like you a lot, Vic. You turn me on."  
  
I sit on my couch next to him only to steal him another kiss, softer and shorter this time. "Okay. I like you too, you know. In a pathetic way."  
  
"I kind of figured. Now come on, get dressed. We've got work to do."

 

_* Last night you said you ended up in Palm Springs dancing on tables_

The "work" is writing a program. It's small, simple and elegant and adds shady, illegal transactions to our bank's budget.  
  
I make up the transactions, Kellin writes the code. He says the application is untraceable, the key is to install it right before we tip the IRS, so that Smalls doesn't notice something's off.  
  
According to the transactions we make up, our branch manager embezzled 5 million dollars.  
  
In reality, I think it might have been more, but he's good at covering his tracks.  
  
It doesn't matter, we have him on the ropes now.  
  
I'm lying on the floor of Kellin's flat next to an empty pizza box and I really want to fall asleep. It's 10 AM. Kellin's still messing with the program. Another empty Red Bull can lands next to me. My eyes are closing.  
  
I hear movement and feel Kellin's long, pale fingers running through my hair. He's sitting on the floor alongside me. He's finished.  
  
"What are you doing down here?" he asks.  
  
"You know, falling asleep. Waiting for a good time to make out with you again. The usual."  
  
He laughs and pulls me in, crushing my face with his, falling to the floor with me. He covers me in pleasant warmth, makes me want to celebrate the fact that we are alive.  
  
I unbutton his plaid, dropping pointless kisses to his throat, chest and collarbones.  
  
"I want you so much, Vic, oh fuck."  
  
He's killing me. In a good way, but he's killing me all the same.  
  
"Let's go then. I want you too."  
  
We're still sitting on the floor, caught up in each other and our little victories.  
  
He stops me. "No. That's something we have to prepare ourselves for. Okay?"  
  
"When?"  
  
"Tonight, 11 PM. Here?"  
  
"All right."  
  
"Let me know if you change your mind."  
  
"I won't."  
  
Thirteen hours to go. Kellin drives me home in my car, because I'm too sleepy to do it myself. He walks home and I fall asleep for three hours. Then I eat dinner with Mike and my mom, who complains:  
Mike doesn't have a real job. I don't eat enough. Mike's girlfriend is very pale and narrow at the hips. I don't even _have_ a girlfriend or a boyfriend. At least I have a decent job.  
  
A typical Saturday at mom's.  
  
I'm about to commit a crime with my coworker I'm not yet sleeping with. Mike's Alysha had an abortion when she was 17 and she brought it up in the first conversation we ever had.  
  
This is how things really are, mom.  
  
I say none of this.  
  
"I'm seeing someone, _mamá_. And I'll try to eat more."  
  
"I want to marry Allie someday. I'll take her to Mexico to let her catch some tan."  
  
These are the things we tell her, and these are true as well. She lightens up.

Five hours to go. Kellin texts me.  
  
_K: Changed your mind yet?_  
  
_V: Do you want me to?_  
  
_K: God no. I bought wine for you and tequila for me. I'm nervous._  
  
_V: I'm freaking out too._  
  
_K: I changed the damn sheets, Vic. It's bad._  
  
_V: Don't do any more stupid stuff. Wait 4 me._

I'm at his door at ten to eleven. He opens up. The dim lights of his apartment make the smile less bright.  
  
We're not sure how to behave. I take off my denim jacket and reach out to hug Kellin. He's shaking a little. My palms are sweating.  
  
I whisper "Hello."  
  
"Hi," he says in a broken voice.  
  
I'm pretty sure I never felt this for anybody.  
  
I'm standing on a windowsill ready to take a leap.  
  
I do. We do.  
  
Next thing I remember is his quiet, small bedroom with a panoramic window, Kellin sprawled on those white, fresh sheets, losing all his clothes.  
  
It's probably the brightest of all his smiles. I really want to lick it off his face.  
  
"I kind of want to say hello again," I say.  
  
"Then do it."  
  
He makes provocative little movements. In bed, he's an evil, evil bastard. Not that I'm complaining.  
  
When he comes, I whisper dirty things in Spanish and he leaves scratches on my back.

*

"There's a special place in hell for people like you, Vic," he'll tell me a few months later. "I love you."

 

_* Falling lights amass one hundred sleepless nights_

It's still this night, our night. I leave the bathroom and Kellin isn't there: not in the kitchen, not in the living room, not in the guitar room, not in the bedroom.  
  
I find him on the balcony, half naked, his tattooed arms holding onto the railing. He's watching the sky, preparing for the oncoming storm.  
  
"I love waiting for the storm. 'Ve done this since I was a kid. Makes all the anxiety go away, like, there are things you can't avoid and there will always be storms."  
  
We wallow in silence for a minute.  
  
"You know, when I left the bathroom and you weren't there, I thought you escaped. I almost had a sad little freakout, before I remembered it's actually your place."  
  
We laugh. Everything feels so natural with him.  
  
"Are we gonna make it, Vic?"  
  
He asks about this thing with Smalls, not about _us_ , because we both know _we_ are definitely gonna make it.  
  
"We'll try."

He makes me gasp for air again before the night turns into day.  
  
*

I used to hate morning-afters with all the people I dated. It always seemed so awkward, so different in the light of the day, the passion faded, the routine sinking in.  
  
Kellin and I fell asleep curled into each other.  
  
I wake up alone.  
  
He's in the kitchen, wearing only boxer shorts, towering over his laptop. He smiles when he sees me.  
  
"Did you sleep well? I made breakfast. I wasn't sure what you like, so I made everything."  
  
There's coffee, scrambled and boiled eggs, a small pyramid of toast, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bacons stripes and some weird fruit salad.  
  
"Jesus, Kellin, how long have you been up?"  
  
"Half an hour or something." He kisses me on the cheek while I stare at all the food.  
  
We devour everything and neither of us can move for another two hours, so we watch this British heist movie by Guy Ritchie and worry about the execution of our great plan.  
  
Maybe morning-afters with Kellin are destined to be different.

 

_* I swear to God I'm gonna change the world_

As for the plan, we wait for our perfect opportunity. We wait for our rush of bravery. We give ourselves two weeks, not longer.  
  
We wake up tangled in each other almost every morning.  
  
Kellin caresses the scar above my navel.  
  
"I'm glad you're alive," he says once, and leaves me speechless.

Five days since we wrote the program I'm doing my usual work and something is wrong. So I check – once, twice, three times. The numbers don't add up.  
  
I text Kellin.  
  
_V: I found dirt on S._  
  
So simple.  
  
He looks up at me, his eyes are round and big in their sockets. A wordless question, _really?  
_  
I nod.  
  
He laughs without any sound coming from his mouth, so wide he has to cover the bottom half of his face with his hand eventually.  
  
It was here the whole time. I trace the pattern and it seems clear now. Only the wrong person has been trying to find it. It should have been me from the beginning.  
  
I hold my phone up and this time I ask him a wordless question, _should I?  
_  
He nods.  
  
I make the phonecall.  
  
"Hello, this is Vic Fuentes, a financial analyst from CCB. I have found a disturbing pattern in our database..."

*

We share an impatient kiss in the bathroom before the IRS inspectors arrive.  
  
Kellin says "Good job, good job, good job." His eyes are screaming. "Come on, let's watch the world burn."  
  
I laugh, because the day is still young and why the fuck not?

*

Hubert Smalls is fired immediately. He's under arrest and waiting for a trial. All CCB employees spend the following day giving depositions to the police.  
  
My findings prove he embezzled 6,5 million dollars.

Our bank is still being investigated, so we are on paid leave. We don't know that yet, but one month later Kellin will start working in production for a record company and I will be one of senior department managers building the new CCB.  
  
Today we are simply on paid leave and Kellin plugs his pendrive into my laptop.  
  
The program we've created together is staring at us.  
  
"So we never got to commit a crime," I say, faking nostalgia. "We did it the old-fashioned, righteous way."  
  
Kellin chuckles.  
  
"It's not necessarily a bad thing, right?"  
  
"We'll have plenty of occasions to sin in the future."  
  
"All right, Vic, I'm deleting this."  
  
Delete.

*

During a celebration with all of our coworkers, after it's announced Smalls will spend at least 10 years in jail, we crack open a few bottles of champagne.  
  
Everybody thanks me and pats me on the back. I tell them Kellin and I have been working on this for a while.  
  
I don't want to be anyone's hero.  
  
The two of us sneak out to have a little celebration of our own.  
  
We walk for an hour and a half to Kellin's apartment.  
  
The sadness in his eyes is overshadowed by something else, something sunnier and warmer.  
  
"Are you happy, Kellin?"  
  
"What do you think?" he answers, and takes me by the hand.

*

Our paid leave is going to last another week.  
  
Kellin is sending out job applications.  
  
We go to Mexico.  
  
We try very hard not to look like tourists. We drink in local bars and dance on wild beaches after sunsets.  
  
We avoid my hometown carefully. The sun burns our backs and slowly tans Kellin's tattooed arms. We wear baseball caps backwards.  
  
I kiss him in the middle of a crowded, colorful street, and then we have loud, messy sex in a motel room.

*

Mike's band is recording an album in LA. He calls me, hyped and cheerful, to announce me they'll be playing a special, last-minute concert.  
  
"Come to the gig, it's on Saturday. Take your guitarist boyfriend."  
  
So we go. In the car, we sing along to CDs and we're being ridiculous.  
  
The show is in a local theatre. It feels almost intimate. Alysha kisses both of us on the cheeks, laughing angelically. She's wearing heels and a white dress with lace, surrounded by the sea of black band T – shirts, denim and leather. She doesn't care. A diamond ring sparkles on her finger.  
  
While the band plays, I glance briefly at Kellin next to me, his face focused on the music, black hair like velvet, hands strumming mindlessly. The vocalist sings something about how he swears he's gonna change the world.  
  
There are many words you can change – some of them big, some of them very little.

This is my life now, and it's real.

**Author's Note:**

> Forever yours at samrull.tumblr.com


End file.
